


More Things in Heaven and the Force

by ShadowSpires



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Force-shenanigans, Gen, Umbara, but for now it's pretty gen, knowing me this will go slashy at some point, oHh, or possibly Not-Force shenanigans, that's a good title, there are more things in heaven and the Force than are dreamt of in your philosophy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 23:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15497343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowSpires/pseuds/ShadowSpires
Summary: Someone interferes in the confrontation with Krell on Umbara. It's not someone anyone was expecting, and no one is quite sure how to deal with it.Cody would just like the world to start making sense again, thank you.





	More Things in Heaven and the Force

No one saw when the other joined them, his arrival lost in the chaos of confronting Krell, brothers flung this way and that, falling, dying.

 

Not until a single, utterly precise blaster barked out a shot from behind, slamming straight through the back of the Jedi’s head.

 

He fell, lifeless, and the battle came to a stunned halt, clones spinning around the face the new threat—

 

It was like... a mockery of a brother. The armor was blocky and  _ wrong _ , sinister. He was standing behind Krell with blaster raised, rock steady — except the blaster was wrong too, not any model they recognized, and besides that, he was... faint, at the edges, blurred and indistinct, and beyond him appeared to stretch the empty hallway of a ship, not the wall of a dark room on this death trap of a world.

 

Rex heard a faint breath of prayers scattered around him, and sympathized.

 

There had been rumor, of course, of brothers who had marched ahead looking back and lending a hand. But Rex hadn’t given them any real credence.

 

This…

 

“Who are you?” He asked the newcomer directly, taking a step forward.

 

The bucket tilted - wrong wrong  _ wrong _ Rex’s instincts screamed even while they also insisted it was  _ familiar _ — and the blaster lowered, clipped to armor with a smooth and casual disregard for the blasters still pointed at him.  _ Familiar _ confidence, Rex’s brain was screaming.

 

The figure’s weight shifted as he began to turn away, turn back. The edges of his body grew more indistinct, the hallway flickering to reveal the wall that should be there.

 

“Wait!” Rex ordered, something telling him he could not let this other just vanish like that. 

 

Bucket or not, the look he got over the other’s shoulder was scathing, but he did stop, outline settling. The hallway continued to flicker and shiver.

 

“Who are you?” Rex repeated. “Why did you kill Krell?”

 

Not the Rex was exactly  _ complaining _ . But this man couldn’t know what Krell had done — could he? Could he be one of the brothers gone away, gone ahead? Or killed by Krell’s malice and stuck here to seek his revenge before marching on? — and Rex needed to know if he was a danger to other Jedi.  

 

Or at least that’s how he was rationalizing apparently trying to question a  _ ghost _ .

 

There was a scoffing sound from the other, it too sounding like it come from down a long hallway.

 

“Do I need a reason to kill Jedi, now?” The figure asked, and Rex’s heart froze. That was— that was a brother’s voice. Distorted, but clearly the same accent most of the brothers had picked up from their trainers and each other.

 

“That would make for quite a change,” the other continued, something sharp and angry and bitter in his voice, the sound of it clearer with every word.

 

A brother’s voice, but it couldn’t be a brother’s  _ words— _ no one, not even Slick, had spoken of killing Jedi so coldly, so calmly, like it was simply a  _ fact _ .

 

Blasters that had been lowered in awe and wonder came up around the room.

 

Thankful for the interference or not, in awe and terror or not, that was a blatant threat, and it could be let to stand.

 

The other snorted again, derisive, posture shifting to something that screamed command so loudly that even Rex felt his posture straightening, even if he didn’t lower his pistols.

 

Who  _ was _ this?  _ What _ was this?

 

“Don’t be hypocrites,” came the biting, bitter rejoinder to their unspoken objection to his words. “You’ll all comply when the order comes down. You won’t have a choice.”

 

A gloved thumb came up to press against the bucket just above the left eye slit, even as the other turned decisively back to the flickering hallway.

 

“Arguing with echoes,” he muttered seemingly to himself, rubbing in a circle, like pressure on the bucket could release an underlying pain.

 

A frozen, icy fist reached out and gripped Rex by the throat.

 

He  _ knew _ that gesture.

 

It couldn’t be. It  _ can’t _ be.

 

Rex’s mind is spinning, screaming.

 

They clashed with the 212th.

 

Killed brothers.

 

That’s going to have to be something he learned to live with. Somehow.

 

_ Somehow _ .

 

But surely.

 

_ Surely _ someone would have told him, if, if— It  _ couldn’t _ be, he would have been  _ told— _

 

“Cody?” He croaked, staring at the apparition, feeling like his world was on the edge of shuttering.

 

The figure stopped again, heaved a sigh visible even through the wrong, bulky, awful armor.

 

He said something that Rex didn’t catch, faint and indistinct and Rex was terrified that he was simply going to vanish without any further information.

 

But he turned instead, like he’d been snared by the name, unable to move forward.

 

His hands came up to undo a multitude of clasps —  _ wrong— _ and twist  _ —wrong— _ the  _ —wrong— _ bucket off his head and —

 

A familiar twisting scar around the left eye was the only thing truly recognizable. Another scar, deeper, obviously badly cared for, gouged itself up his left cheek to bisect the other. Shock white hair was cut brutally short over a old, weathered face.

 

The worse was the cold, dead, bitter amber eyes that started at him from under arched eyebrows. A familiar expression on a face changed nearly — but not entirely — beyond recognition.

 

“Yeah?” The other asked, like the question didn’t steal the air from the lungs of everyone in the room.

 

“ _ Cody _ ,” Rex said again, hoarse like he’s been screaming. “Cody,  _ what— _ ?

 

He reached out a hand, unconsciously, pistol holstered who even knew when, because his brain was refusing to register Cody as a threat.

 

Cody, here, like this, insubstantial at the edges.

 

He doesn’t know what to think, how to process this, doesn’t know what is happening.

 

There’s only one reason he can think of, that no one would have told him.

 

“Did  _ I _ —?” He can’t even finish the question. It’s too much, too horrible to contemplate.

 

Cody’s brow raises higher than before, the expression that’s always meant he was just asked a stupid question by a stupid shiny. Rex loved seeing that expression directed indiscriminately at vode, generals, and senators alike.

 

...  _ had _ loved?

 

“Well, if you didn’t you better not tell anyone. I’d hate to have to arrest you.”

 

_...What? _

 

Rex’s bewilderment must have come across to the other — to  _ Cody _ — because he sighed, and, finally, took a firm step forward from where he had been standing at the end of the insubstantial hallway when he shot Krell.

 

Rex absently noticed that his outlines solidified with each step he took towards him, the mirage of the hallway fading out apace.

 

His hand came up to cup the jaw of the bucket, thumb stroking over the curve of the sharp-edge cheek plate, and there was nothing in Rex that could shrink from that touch even though it made him shiver and made grips tighten on rifles around the room.

 

“If anyone could have prevented it, I believe you could have,” Cody said quietly, the lines around his eyes softening just a little, something no one else would have seen. 

 

Rex almost wept. 

 

It’s the first indication he had that anything of the Cody he knows — knew?— was left in this bitter old shell.

 

Rex felt his heart shatter.

 

“Still have faith in me after this?” Rex choked out, hand coming up to hover over the hand in his bucket, not quite daring to touch.

 

“I don’t have faith in anything, anymore,” Cody corrected gently, the words all the worse for the calm way it’s said, like it’s a fact. A fact like _ killing Jedi. _ “But if I could, it would be in you. I never knew what happened to you, after. There was a rumor. Finally. But I was never able to track it down.”

 

The scoff this time was self directed, bitterness twisting his mouth.

 

“Never could bring myself to, more like. Maybe that’s what this is. Whatever I have left of a conscience after all these years.”

 

... Rex was getting the distinct impression that they were... not having the same conversation.

 

“I don’t understand,” Rex told him, lost and hurting. “Cody, what happened to you?”

 

Was this what dying did to a vod?

 

... _ dying _ .

 

Tears spilled over inside the confines of his bucket, entirely without his permission. 

 

Was this it?

 

Was Cody really dead?

 

Dead and  _ suffering _ , not peacefully waiting.

 

Cody shook his head, expression shutting down flat.

 

“What didn’t?” He snapped, bitter and sharp again, all tiny traces of softness wiped away, hand withdrawing.

 

Rex’s hand flashed out without conscious thought — and his hand closed around Cody’s wrist, solid and hard.

 

He stared wide eyed down at the contact, having expected to close his grip on nothing.

 

Cody yanked his hand back, away from Rex’s touch, but in that same instant the flickering hallway collapsed in on itself as it it had never been, and the insubstantial outlines that had been haloing Cody snapped to solid reality.

 

He staggered, suddenly gasping and heaving for breath like he had been submerged until the edge of his limits, collapsing down to one knee as he fought for air.

 

Rex was at his side in an instant, Kix barely a hair’s breadth behind, his shock finally broken by training and instinct.

 

Rex hovered, bewildered, as Kix talked Cody through breathing, asking him if he was hurting anywhere.

 

Had he just... pulled Cody back from the other side?

 

Was that even possible?!

 

The Jedi insisted that there was no death, only the Force, but somehow  _ he didn’t think this was what they had meant! _

 

Cody waved Kix away with a harsh hand, pulling himself back to his feet and taking a step back, glaring around now with suspicion, eyes like ice and face twisted into a hateful expression.

 

Rex finally realized that the hard look had been soft, for this version of Cody; lined with the edges of fondness and wistfulness for a room full of brothers.

 

“What is this?” He demanded now, glare picking out every one of the vode in the room. “Is this a test? I don’t care if there is an Inquisitor involved, or if the orders came from the Emperor himself, someone better explain this or I’ll peel your  _ corpses _ out of my brothers’ armor a piece at a time!”

 

“I hardly think that will be necessary,” came a mild voice from the doorway, and Rex felt like someone had just lifted the  _ battlecruiser _ he hadn’t know he’d been carrying off his shoulders.

 

If anyone could figure out this madness, it was Obi-Wan.

 

Cody’s gaze snapped to the new voice, hate and fury still twisting his expression —

 

Until it wasn’t.

 

Hate fell away, replaced by a blankness more terrifying than anything that had come before.

 

He moved like lightning, blaster up and in his hand, aimed at where Obi-Wan was framed by the doorway, finger squeezing on the trigger before any of the rest of them could react.

 

Rex shouted, stunned beyond words, reaching out like he could catch the blaster bolt, everything happening in slow motion.

 

Obi-Wan’s eyes widened, shock breaking over his face for a split second. One hand was reaching for his saber, but it wasn’t on his belt, fingers grasping at nothing. The other hand extended like he could block the blast with his bare hand — please, Force, let him be able to block it!

 

A yellow gauntleted hand yanked Obi-Wan out of the way of the first bolt, and blue plasma erupted between him and the second, which followed straight after, the figure in achingly familiar white and gold standing between Obi-Wan and Cody  _ —but, how?— _ lightsaber in hand, washing him with eerie blue  _ — but Cody was— _

 

Rex didn’t see what happened to the third or fourth of those blistering red bolts, because he was turning back to Cody  _ — but Cody was over— _ trying to make him stop this insanity, the litany of “Good Soldiers Follow Orders” spilling from his lips like a nightmare at the edge of memory — only to see him collapsing onto the ground, Kix half on top of him, a hypospray pressed against his neck.

 

The room collectively exhaled, stunned silence as everyone gripped weapons and tried to come to some kind of grip on what exactly was happening here.

 

The sound of a lightsaber deactivating was the first sound to break the silence, and Rex’s head jerked to where Cody  _ — but Cody was over there!— _ was calmly holding it out to Obi-Wan.

 

“You dropped this, sir,” he said blandly, like he hadn’t just stopped his apparent double from  _ shooting _ their general by  _ using the General’s lightsaber _ and Rex couldn’t blame his men for the hysterical snickers that echoed around the room.

 

“ _ Cody _ ?” He rasped out, taking a step forward. He’d been sure, or he’d  _ thought _ at least — he’d thought Cody was  _ dead _ .

 

Now he didn’t know at all what was happening, but if Cody was really alive, really okay...

 

Obi-Wan took his lightsaber with an arch look, but refrained from commenting at Rex’s pained question.

 

Cody turned, popping his helmet seal and lifting the  _ right _ bucket off his head, lined with golden paint, not blank and white and glaring. 

 

Single curling scar, and a face still young as his own, golden eyes concerned as they looked at Rex.

 

Rex exhaled shakily and tried to pull himself together.

 

Or at least making a good  _ show _ of being together.

 

“Something really strange is happening here, General,” Rex managed, with some semblance of his usual brisk efficiency, but his eyes don’t leave Cody’s face.

 

“It would seem so,” Obi-Wan said, looking between the scatter of vode bodies, the corpse of the Jedi that had been in charge of the offensive on this planet, and the old, unconscious version of his commander that had just tried to  _ shoot _ him. “Who would like to try to explain?”

 

Every single one his men took a step back.

 

Fucking traitors.


End file.
